Stuttgart - Daimler’s second-quarter operating profit jumped 54 percent, beating analysts’ predictions, as Mercedes- Benz outpaced rival luxury-car brands in China and new models boosted sales.
Earnings before interest and taxes from ongoing business rose to 3.78 billion euros ($4.13 billion) from 2.46 billion euros a year earlier, Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler said Thursday in a statement.
Profit exceeded the 3.31 billion-euro average of eight analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Profit from carmaking amounted to 10.5 percent of revenue, beating a long-standing margin goal of 10 percent. Sales jumped 19 percent to 37.5 billion euros.
Daimler is overhauling and widening Mercedes’s lineup, which has helped prop up sales in China, the world’s biggest car market.
Larger rivals BMW AG and Audi AG have tempered forecasts there. Mercedes is pushing to overtake the two other German manufacturers as the world’s top-selling luxury-car maker by the end of the decade.
“The car division’s margin looks to be sustainable,” Juergen Pieper, a Frankfurt-based analyst with Bankhaus Metzler, said by phone. “Daimler is launching the new E-Class, their most important model, early next year. The Chinese market cooldown is expected to be temporary and, with Europe also recovering, the outlook is good.”
Mercedes earnings
Second-quarter earnings before interest and tax at the Mercedes-Benz Cars division, which also includes the Smart city-car brand, surged 58 percent to 2.23 billion euros.
The Mercedes nameplate is adding four new or revamped sport utility vehicles this year, part of the strategy to eventually beat top-ranked BMW and second-place Audi in deliveries.
Daimler reiterated forecasts that revenue and earnings from ongoing business will rise significantly this year.
Mercedes’s global six-month deliveries of just under 898 500 vehicles trailed Volkswagen’s premium Audi marque by fewer than 4 000 cars, putting it in range of beating the Ingolstadt, Germany-based competitor’s full-year deliveries for the first time since 2011.
Munich-based BMW, the biggest-selling luxury-car brand since 2005, boosted first-half sales 5.1 percent to more than 932 000 autos.
Mercedes was the only one of the top three luxury-auto producers to report sales growth in China last month, with a 39 percent surge there in contrast to a 0.1 percent slide at BMW and 5.8 percent drop at Audi.
In mid-July, Mercedes stuck to a goal of selling more than more than 300 000 cars in China this year.
Audi has abandoned a target of 600 000 Chinese deliveries after a stock market rout in the country and a government anti- corruption drive sapped demand for luxury vehicles.
Bloomberg